Malcolm wrote:Since the past is not established, since it has perished, and the future is not established, since it has yet to come to be, the present cannot be established either. Therefore, dependent origination is not an eternal process because no processes can be established, other than as conventions.

Further, dependent origination is about the afflicted processes that drive samsara, affliction, action, and suffering. When affliction is removed, action has no cause; and when action has no cause, the result, suffering cannot be produced. From this perspective too, dependent origination cannot be seen as eternal, since when one attains realization, one becomes free from that process entirely.

Malcolm wrote:It is pretty clear that Indian Mahāyāna Buddhists regarded arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and buddhas as equivalent with respect to liberation. From a Mahāyāna point of view difference between the three lies in cultivation of merit and the depth of their omniscience. Considering Mahāyāna to be a separate religion from the Śrāvaka schools is a big mistake. They merely did different things with the raw material the Buddha left us.

... we treat buddhahood as if it were a state -- the term state implies something steady -- when one thing changes into another thing, we call that a "change of state". But buddhahood is no more a state that ignorance is. In other words, ultimately there is no buddhahood. Buddhahood is just a name for a relative appearance. When the causes and conditions that support that appearance cease, so does buddhahood.

The different sūtras in accord with the emptiness
taught by the Sugata are definitive in meaning;
One can understand that all of those Dharmas in
which a sentient being, individual, or person are taught are provisional in meaning.

'If their conditions are not discontinued even illusions will not cease to be.

Likewise,since sentient beings have not discontinued the conditions for cyclic existence,
they are in cyclic existence, but since the Buddha has discontinued these conditions,
even deceptively he does not exist with the nature of one in cyclic existence.'

Malcolm wrote:One must disentangle what impacts one's liberation, and what impacts the world. There is really no way to prevent the transient suffering of sentient beings. The view that one can is really a one-lifetime view at best. That is why the Buddha clearly stated, "I cannot remove suffering with my hands." Mature Dharma practitioners know with sadness there is really nothing that can be done about the suffering of others, even though we make aspirational vows to lead all beings to nirvana, in order for that to happen, those sentient beings need to be reborn as human beings first.
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It is pretty clear there is suffering in the world. But the only way suffering can be removed in a real sense is by meeting the Dharma and practicing a path. In the meantime, I will seek to help those I can directly help, and feel sadness at my limitations in not being able to help all sentient beings, even though that is my most sincere wish.

We who are like children shrink from pain but love its causes. - Shantideva

Dzogchen is the essence of Buddhadharma. Buddhism is fragmented into sects and traditions. Dzogchen is beyond sects and traditions. Buddhism is cultural. Dzogchen is beyond culture. Buddhism is a religion. Dzogchen is beyond religion.

Any given entity can be can be the object of a veridical perception that accords with suchness, or the object of a non-veridical perception that does not accord with suchness. But the same perception cannot be both veridical, in accordance with suchness, and non-veridical, not in accordance with-- it must one or the other.

There has always been room for Mahāyāna teachers to engage in conduct that seems to not conform to lower Buddhist ethics. Of course, some people use this laxity as an excuse to indulge their afflictions. This is not the intention of the situational ethics of Mahāyāna.